Journal Citation Reports 2025: Addressing retractions and strengthening research integrity

From 2025 (2024 data), citations to and from retracted articles will no longer contribute towards the Journal Impact Factor.

Ever since scientists began to communicate the results of their work, they have had to revise and correct their findings, with the first retraction recorded as early as 1756. Articles are retracted for many reasons – ranging from honest mistakes to intentional manipulation – but whatever the reason, retractions play a crucial role in maintaining the integrity of the scholarly record. They serve as a mechanism for self-correction, ensuring that erroneous or fraudulent results or conclusions do not mislead the public, the scientific community or policy makers – creating an unsound foundation for future discoveries, policies or behavior.

Journal Impact Factor as a marker of trust

We make every effort to ensure that only trustworthy journals are indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection, the data source for the Journal Citation Reports (JCR). However, even trustworthy journals sometimes publish content that goes on to be retracted, and we have been diligently flagging retracted articles in indexed journals since 2016 and incorporating Retraction Watch data since 2022.

Our commitment to research integrity is not limited to our robust editorial selection and introducing new features in the Web of Science; it extends to the metrics, indicators and visualizations we include in the JCR and the insights we publish in our Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) reports.

We have been suppressing the Journal Impact Factor (JIF) for journals in which we observe signs of anomalous citation behaviour since the 2008 release. In 2023, we extended the JIF from only the most impactful journals in the sciences and social sciences to all journals that have passed our quality criteria and are indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection.

In doing so, we have evolved the JIF from a journal-level marker of scholarly impact in the sciences and social sciences to a marker of both impact and trustworthiness across all disciplines. In 2024, we introduced new unified rankings across our science and social science subject categories, sending another strong signal that journal quality should be equated with trustworthiness rather than high citation impact.

Retracted content and citations

Citations to and from retracted content need to be treated with caution. Currently, retracted articles represent only a tiny fraction of the scholarly record; in the Web of Science Core Collection, retracted content represents just 0.04% of indexed content. However, it is worth noting that from first investigation by the publisher, to sign off from multiple authors and their institutions, and sometimes even legal challenges, retractions typically take years rather than months.

This combination of low volumes and long lead times for retractions means that citations to and from retracted articles represent a tiny contribution to JIF calculations. Overall, of the 4.6+ million citations that contributed to the JIF across ~ 22,000 journals in the 2024 JCR release, only ~20,000 were to or from content that had been retracted at that time (~0.4%). (See here for more information on how the JIF is calculated).

In recent years there has been an increase in the number of retractions and we have also noted signs of a reduction in the time it takes to retract indexed articles. Given these trends, we have decided to introduce a new policy to pre-emptively guard against any such time that citations to and from retracted content could contribute to widespread distortions in the JIF.

Starting from this year’s JCR release, we will exclude citations to and from retracted content when calculating the JIF numerator, ensuring that citations from retracted articles do not contribute to the numerical value of the JIF. However, retracted articles will still be included in the article count (JIF denominator), maintaining transparency and accountability.

True to our heritage, leading through change

All those involved in creating, reviewing, publishing and assessing academic literature share the responsibility for protecting the integrity of the scholarly record, and we take our part in that collective responsibility very seriously. This change is just the latest step in our ongoing efforts to support research integrity across editorial selection, our products and our metrics.

As we move forward, we will continue to monitor changes in journal behavior, consider community feedback, and examine how we might improve other indicators, descriptive data and visualizations contained within the JCR.

We are proud to remain true to our heritage while adapting to changes in the scholarly landscape. Eugene Garfield, creator of the Science Citation Index in 1975 – the world’s first citation index and the predecessor of the Web of Science – is best known as a pioneer in bibliometrics, but he also played an important part in shaping thinking around research integrity and ethics in scientific publication. As we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the JCR, we are embracing Garfield’s vision and looking to the future, reinforcing our dedication to maintaining the integrity of the scientific record and continuing our journey towards a more transparent, trustworthy and robust scholarly ecosystem.

Explore all our blogs about Journal Citation Reports.

https://clarivate.com/academia-government/blog/journal-citation-reports-2025-addressing-retractions-and-strengthening-research-integrity/

 

Dr Nandita Quaderi

Senior Vice President & Editor-in-Chief, Web of Science

(This document is copied from https://clarivate.com)